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This month we’ll take a look at the candidates.

Featured today are the candidates for the Committee on World Anthropologies Undesignated Seat #9: Hsain Ilahiane and Kathleen O’Connor.

Committee member objectives are to identify significant issues that are shared among anthropologists from different nations, to develop clear objectives for drawing US and international anthropologists together in ways that benefit anthropology globally, and to engage a diversity of international voices and perspectives and involve both academic and applied anthropologists in this endeavor.

I value the charge to and the objectives of the Committee on World Anthropologies and would be honored to serve on the committee as it endeavors to meet its mandate. I would like to work within this committee to:
1. foster deeper international collaboration;
2. promote the visibility of the theoretical and applied work of global south anthropologists;
3. explore ways to get global south students to attend, organize, and present at the AAA meetings; and
4. work to establish a global AAA presence in the form of online chapters.
I would like to leverage this opportunity to open the doors of the AAA to the world. I bring a set of world research experiences and networks to this seat. I carry out my research in Morocco and my areas of theoretical interest are development, poverty, globalization, economic anthropology, and political ecology throughout the Middle East. I have also carried out applied research in the United States, Mexico, Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. I was a visiting senior social scientist at Intel Corporation in 2006-2007, and I have presented my work at conferences in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Africa.

Kathleen O’Connor

My platform has two “planks”: the first is the issue of translation. I believe it is essential for anthropologists to translate our work and make it accessible to those with whom we have conducted fieldwork. I would strongly encourage AAA anthropologists to present research at conferences abroad, particularly in the host country. I have had the opportunity or presenting my Brazilian research in Brazil, in Portuguese, and it was an amazing experience to receive feedback from Brazilian colleagues. I believe that presenting our work to our hosts completes the ethnographic process by reporting what we learned, and allowing space for challenges, to make sure we get it right.
The second plank in my platform also follows the committee’s mandate to encourage global anthropologists to visit the US and present their work. If elected, I will work assiduously to find ways of facilitating this exchange through funding opportunities and networking. This year I participated on a panel at AAA attended by one of the top scholars in my research area, who came from the Netherlands. It was very exciting to meet someone I had been citing for years. Finally, increased interaction with global scholars serves a 21st century anthropology, which must adopt a fully global gaze.